Counting Chickens
We made our annual exploratory trip to the cinema on Saturday, (nothing thrilling - 'Alvin & The Chipmunks' breakfast club). It had been a year since we last disturbed everyone's viewing pleasure with the two-year old's popcorn-fuelled antics (we made it through five minutes of Ratatouille before I left the pilot to enjoy the film in peace with the six-year old). This time we made it to the point where the songwriter is denied his muffins after fluffing his pitch to the big agent - ie, ouch, just as I was starting to sympathise with him. Maybe next year we'll make it through a whole film. Don't you love the cinema? With the scarcity of babysitters and working schedules if you're anything like us, we just never go. We watch ridiculous numbers of DVDs now, but nothing makes up for the big screen. Growing up, the Art Deco cinema in my nearest town was called the Tivoli. It had bristly velour seats, cigarette and ice cream girls with proper trays held on by ribbons round their necks, and love seats with ashtrays in the back row.
As we loaded up with popcorn and coffee (for me not the kids - last thing they need), I glanced longingly at the billboards for the adult movies. 'Burn After Reading' caught my eye - the new Coen brother's film. Being British I read it as 'Reading' (town to the west of London) not Reeeeding - well it was breakfast time. I started imagining a cross between 'The Office' and 'No Country for Old Men', then realised it was about the CIA. There was a rather dashing photo of John Malkovich in a silk paisley dressing gown, identical to the vintage one I used to loll around writing in when I was seventeen. Perhaps there is something about writers and dressing gowns - remember Michael Douglas in 'The Wonder Boys'? Someone stole mine at university and I've never found a replacement.
What age did you realise writing was something you really, really wanted to do - as opposed to churning out assignments at school? The pretensions of the teenage writer know no bounds. It always amazes me when kids manage to get their act together enough to have entire books published at that age - I wonder if they are from literary backgrounds with savvy parents and good contacts generally? I had my first story published when I was seventeen, and realised that not only was this fun, you could get paid well for it. I immediately blew my first paycheque on an antique Turkish lamp - it is a perfect sphere as big as a basketball of filigree silver, which casts amazing patterns over the walls. It hung in pride of place in my purple tented bedroom (yes, really, I hung hand painted purple silk drapes like a cross between a Bedouin tent and a fin de siecle bordello ...) from where I would occasionally emerge in a cloud of incense for fresh supplies of mint tea (rarely ate, too busy writing and lolling - hence the Miss Vogue and Twiggy monikers, those were the glory days). Now the lamp is gathering dust on a shelf in the living room but I can see it from where I write.
My English teacher at the time fancied himself as something of a 'Dead Poet's Society' style mentor to gauche young kids. He frequently referred to us as 'the Lotus eaters' (in retrospect you can see this was not without justification). If you want a visual image - Freud look-alike who sported double denim on his days off. One day he sauntered into the class, stood at the centre of the horseshoe shape he always made us arrange the desks in, and looked slowly round, finally settling his gaze on me. 'Well,' he said quietly. 'We have a published writer in our midst.' He pulled a copy of my story from his pocket, and tossed it on his desk before clapping - very, very slowly. No 'well done' just a very slow (and not at all congratulatory) clap. I remember staring him down but I was heartbroken. Mortified.
Maybe that is why I've kept so quiet for so long about all the books. It's over twenty years since I sold my first piece, and now the paycheques from articles tend to go on less exciting things than antique lanterns (like nappies, school fees and utility bills). Funny thing is though, if there was a fire (yes that old chestnut), next to the pilot, kids, dog, fish etc what I would rescue is that lantern. Maybe you have something similar? A talisman for your work? It marks the beginning of when I really started writing. Today, I finally got the letter welcoming me to the new agency. I'm not counting chickens yet (well, trying not to), but I am cockahoop, dancing a jig with the hound as the pilot's still in Colombo. It's one step closer to the dream, and I just wanted to thank you all for tuning in this summer - your support and comments have been brilliant, and I'm so enjoying writing with you.
TODAY'S PROMPT: Are there any creative monsters in your past (or present for that matter)? People who knocked your confidence about your ability to write? Why not sit down and write them a letter. Get it all out - all the hurt, anger, righteous pain. Sometimes when things whirl round and round your subconscious they get stuck there, and the simple act of writing it out, then shredding or burning the paper can help you move on. When did you get the writing bug? Have you kept your early work for posterity, or destroyed it?
